Product Description
There are a thousand ways to die in the Asteroid Belt, but roving claims investigator Ged Stanton wants to be sure—was the death of Jafe McCann planned or accidental? He knows he has to move carefully on this, or he might end up being the next victim!
First published in Amazing Stories, March 1961… More >>
Tags: Profession, Risk
2 responses to The Risk Profession
This is a short story presented in a pamphlet. I remember reading it years ago in an anthology where it is more appropriately published.
The story involves a murder on an astroid, looked into by an insurance investigator working the claim. Without going too far into it, the story is good, but hardly memorable. Westlake lovers will appreciate having it in their collections, those who simply appreciate a good story will like it, but is it worth the money? Maybe not.
Rating: 3 / 5
The Risk Profession was originally published in Amazing Stories in the year 1961. It’s basically a murder mystery set in space where an insurance investigator has to go to a space version of a gold mining claim and work out if the claimant on a policy murdered his insured mining partner. I originally read this short story in A Good Story and Other Stories so if you can track that down, it may be better value, plus you get some other Westlake short stories too.
I had hoped this was another Westlake anthology collection containing maybe a few stories that I hadn’t come across before but alas it is just the one story – The Risk Profession. It is fairly short, only 59 pages at a print size that’s even larger than most large print novels’ font size. It’s cover also makes it look like a graphic novel (comic book) for some reason. Maybe a good gift for someone who doesn’t read much to get them interested in novels and there’s no better author to do that with, than Westlake.
I do like the fact though that a publisher, Aegypan Press in this case is republishing a Westlake short story written long ago. Hopefully they’ll do a few more in the future which will save time and money tracking down old anthologies long out of print.
If you want to experience Westlake’s talent at writing in space science fiction I’d check out the great novel Anarchaos. If it’s no longer available, or a reasonable price, it’s also inside Westlake’s anthology Tomorrow’s Crimes, although not having read that anthology myself I’m not sure if it is just an abridged version or the full length novel.
If you’ve only read this story, you have a great multitude of sensational high quality, often masterpiece novels awaiting you under Westlake’s name (and a few pen names as well, such as Richard Stark). Westlake wrote across most genres, his most successful being the comic crime capers, but he’s also written hard violent crime, mystery novels, and even a Western to name but a few genres. In my opinion there was no greater author than him.
Rating: 3 / 5
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